Cigarette butts and the building of socialism in East Germany

Central European History

Volumn 35, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 327-344

  Hong, Young Sun ^a  

^a STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34047269870     PISSN: 00089389     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/15691610260426489     Document Type: Review

References (74)

1. Georges Vigarello, Concepts of Cleanliness, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge, 1988);
2. Douglas MacKaman, Leisure Settings: Bourgeois Culture, Medicine, and the Spa in Modern France (Chicago, 1998).
3. On Germany in particular, see Manuel Frey, Der reinliche Bürger: Entstehung und Verbreitung bürgerlicher Tugenden in Deutschland, 1760-1860 (Göttingen, 1997);
4. Ute Frevert, Krankheit als politisches Problem 1770-1880 (Göttingen, 1984);
5. Klaus Bergdolt, Leib und Seele: Eine Kulturgeschichte des gesunden Lebens (Munich, 1999);
6. Regina Löneke and Ira Spieker, eds., Reinliche Leiber - schmutzige Geschäfte: Körperhygiene und Reinlichkeitsvorstellungen in zwei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen, 1996).
7. Gareth Pritchard, The Making of the GDR 1945-53: From Antifascism to Stalinism (Manchester, 2000), 228.
8. See also Corey Ross, Constructing Socialism at the Grass-Roots: The Transformation of East Germany, 1945-65 (New York, 2000).
9. Ina Merkel, Utopie und Bedürfnis: Die Geschichte der Konsumkultur in der DDR (Cologne, 1999), 326.
10. On the East German economy in the 1960s, see André Steiner, "Von 'Hauptaufgabe' zu 'Hauptaufgabe': Zur Wirtschaftsentwicklung der langen 60er Jahre in der DDR," in Dynamische Zeiten: Die 60er Jahre in den beiden deutschen Gesellschaften, ed. Axel Schildt, Detlef Siegfried, and Karl Christian Lammers (Hamburg, 2000), 218-47.
11. Rolf Thränhardt, "Eine gesunde Lebensweise ist das Ziel," Alles für Deine Gesundheit 5 (1961): 1.
12. Cited in 75 Jahre Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in der DDR (Dresden, 1987), 35.
13. Donna Harsch makes a similar point in "Society, the State, and Abortion in East Germany, 1950-1972," American Historical Review 102, no. 1 (February 1997): 53-84.
14. Ulrich Linse, "Völkisch-rassische Siedlungen der Lebensreform," in Handbuch zur "Völkischen Bewegung" 1871-1918, ed. Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz, and Justus H. Ulbricht (Munich, 1996), 398-401.
15. Letter from Dr. Klingler of the Eden cooperative to the Ministry of Health, 30 September 1959, BAB: DQ1/6017.
16. See the court decision in BAB: DQ1/6017.
17. For more on modernization in the two Germany's, see Schildt, Siegfried, and Lammers, eds., Dynamische Zeiten; Robert Moeller, ed., West Germany under Construction: Politics, Society, and Culture in the Adenauer Era (Ann Arbor, 1997);
18. Axel Schildt and Arnold Sywottek, eds., Modernisierung im Wiederaufbau: Die westdeutsche Gesellschaft der 50er Jahre (Bonn, 1998);
19. André Steiner, Die DDR-Wirtschaftsreform der sechziger Jahre: Konflikt zwischen Effizienz- und Machtkalkül (Berlin, 1999).
20. Willy Eberhardt to the Ministry of Health, 13 January 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
21. Response by the Volkswirtschaftsrat to the Ministry of Health, cited in Thränhardt to Eberhardt, 17 February 1965, BAB, DQ1/3614.
22. Thränhardt to Knobling, 22 December 1966, BAB: DQ1/5175.
23. Thränhardt to Frau Stier, 9 November 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
24. Thränhardt to Frau Stölzner, 9 August 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
25. Kurt Müller to NBI, 14 December 1964, BAB: DQ1/5175.
26. Wilhelm Schlak (Magdeburg) to Neue Berliner Illlustrierte (no date), BAB, DQ1/6017.
27. Robert Proctor, The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton, 1999).
28. See Allan Brandt's forthcoming book, The Rise and Fall of the Cigarette (New York, 2002).
29. For more on this, see Matthew Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture 1800-2000 (Manchester, 2000), chap. 5.
30. For a feminist interpretation of women's smoking, see Lorraine Greaves, Smoke Screen (Halifax, 1996).
31. There is no systematic study of the role of smoking in German popular culture. For a brief survey, however, see Irmgard Hanselmann, "Zigaretten, Ärzteschaft und Sucht im Spannungsfeld von Politik und Krieg (1900-1950)" (Ph.D. diss., University of Tübingen, 1991)
32. On the British antitobacco movement, see S. Lock, L.A. Reynolds and E.M. Tansey, eds., Ashes to Ashes: The History of Smoking and Health (Amsterdam, 1998).
33. "Geliebter Qualm," Freie Presse (Karl-Marx-Stadt), 16 October 1965.
34. Howard M. Leichter, Free to be Foolish: Politics and Health Promotion in the United States and Great Britain (Princeton, 1991), 115.
35. For more, see Hilton, Smoking in British Popular Culture.
36. Statistisches Jahrbuch der DDR (1979): 275, cited in Maria Elisabeth Ruban, Gesundheitswesen in der DDR (Berlin, 1981), 85. According to the same source, in West Germany the per capita consumption of cigarettes in 1978 was 2,012; this was much higher than the corresponding figure for East Germany (1,683).
37. See also E. Bahrmann, "Klare Zahlen zum Tabakschaden," Deine Gesundheit 6, no. 2 (1960): 12-13.
38. In 1967, at least three-quarten of the 7,500 deaths from lung cancer were attributable to cigarette smoking, according to "Tabak-Alkohol- Arzneimittelmissbrauch," BAB: DQ 1/3614. According to a 1965 survey by Heidelberg University, in West Germany six times as many men died of lung cancer as women, and between 1940 and 1965 the level of lung cancer mortality increased 275 percent for men and only 61 percent for women. Most striking was the large increase in female mortality since the 1950s. In West Germany smoking was increasing fastest among women; in 1925 women had made up only 1 percent of all smokers; this had risen to 4 percent by 1930 and 58 percent in 1950 "Raucherkrebs hält reiche Ernte: Westdeutsche Mediziner registrieren Zunahme des Lungenkrebs bei Frauen," Tribüne 2 September 1965, BA: DQ1/3614.
39. The trend was similar in West Germany. See "Zigaretten im Vormarsch," Der Spiegel 4 (1964): 61.
40. Petitions (Eingaben) constitute one important source for scholars of the former GDR. For more on the nature and value of petitions as historical sources, see Alf Lüdtke and Peter Becker, eds., Akten - Eingaben - Schaufenster: Die DDR und ihre Texte (Berlin, 1997);
41. Ina Merkel, ed., "Wir sind doch nicht die Mecker-Ecke der Nation": Briefe an das DDR-Fernsehen (Cologne, 1998);
42. Felix Mühlberg, "Konformismus oder Eigensinn? Eingaben als Quelle zur Erfonchung der Alltagsgeschichte der DDR," in Mitteilungen aus der kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung (MkF) 19 (1996): 331-45;
43. and Mühlberg, "Wenn die Faust auf den Tisch schlägt: Eingaben als Strategie zur Bewältigung des Alltags," in Wunderwirtschaft: DDR-Konsumkultur in den 60er Jahren, ed. Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (Cologne, 1996), 175-84.
44. Otto Prells in response to Neue Berliner Illustrierte, 27 January, 1958, BAB: DQ1/6017.
45. Thränhardt to Redaktion of Neue Zeit (no date [1966]), BAB: DQ1/5175.
46. Petition letter to the Ministry of Health, signed by Kurt Richter, 26 October 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
47. Cited in letter by Willi Patzig (Heil- u. Sportmasseur) to Thränhardt, 31 July 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614. According to Patzig, this case was originally reported in Sozialversicherung-Arbeitsschutz in 1964.
48. Alcoholism was defined as "foreign and alien behavior" that was harmful to the socialist state. Hasso Spode, "'Der Charakter des Rausches hatte sich total verändert.' Historische Voraussetzungen der Alkoholismusprävention: Deutsches Reich, Bundesrepublik und DDR," in Hauptsache Gesund! Gesundheitsaufklärung zwischen Disziplinierung und Emanzipation, ed. Susanne Roessiger and Heidrun Merk (Marburg, 1998), 113.
49. Ruban, Gesundheitswesen in der DDR, 87.
50. Thränhardt to Gerhard Rakobrandt, 18 October 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
51. The reply by the Ministry of Health to Horst Murawsky, 15 October 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
52. Thränhardt to Ernst Pfau, 17 July 1967, BAB: DQ1/2433.
53. Thränhardt to Gerhard Müller, 14 July 1961. And Thränhardt to Patzig, 24 August 1965, BAB: DQ1/6017
54. See also Thränhardt to Redaktion BZ am Abend, 24 August 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
55. Thränhardt to Frau Simon, 25 May 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
56. The Ministry of Health clearly differentiated between alcoholism and "nicotinism." The authorities defined alcoholism as a "genuine illness" (echte Krankheit) that required clinical treatment, which was itself covered by health insurance. In contrast, the drug, Lobelin, which was designed to help people overcome nicotine addiction, was not covered by insurance in part because the government felt that making people pay for this medication themselves would provide a strong incentive to give up smoking. See Thränhardt's reply to Frau Stier, a pharmacist in Karl-Marx-Stadt, 9 November 1965, BA: DQ1/3614. Like alcohol and tuberculosis, there was a link between smoking and productivity in terms of the cost of medical treatment, work time lost, and indirect harm to the health and working conditions of nonsmokers.
57. Gerhard Rakobrandt to Redaktion der Wochenpost, 3 October 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
58. Frau L. Beuthner 4 August 1961, BAB: DQ1/6017.
59. Winfried Thaa, Iris Häuser, Michael Schenkel, and Gerd Meyer, Gesellschaftliche Differenzierung und Legitimitätsverfall des DDR-Sozialismus: Das Ende des anderen Wégs in der Moderne (Tübingen, 1992): 9-10.
60. See also Heike Solga, Auf dem Weg in eine klassenlose Gesellschaft? Klassenlagen und Mobilität zwischen Generationen in der DDR (Berlin, 1995).
61. Edith Müller, 21 October 1962, BAB: DQ1/6017.
62. G. Dittrich to Reichsbahn, 21 November 1961, BAB: DQ1/6017.
63. Hans-Peter Smers to the Ministry of Health, 6 November 1965, BAB: DQ1/3614.
64. However, according to the Health Ministry, even though the GDR had the highest cigarette prices in the Eastern block, the country also had the highest per capita cigarette consumption among the European socialist countries. Health Ministry to Lotte Krell, 20 January 1966, BA: DQ1/3614.
65. Werner Prasse, 5 January 1965, in his response to the article "Rauchen - Selbstmord," BAB: DQ1/3614.
66. Otto Steudte to the Ministry of Health 12 January 1967, Werner Zscherpe to the Ministry of Health 23 January 1960, W. Schröder to the Ministry of Health, 10 March 1958, BA: DQ1/6017. See also Werner Prasse to the Ministry of Health, 1 May 1965, Willy Eberhardt to the Ministry of Health, 13 January 1965, BA: DQ1/3614.
67. Frau S. did not forget to relate in her letter "How happily I think back on the time (I'm now 52 years old) when one could shop without constraints and when shopping bags were printed with the words 'Eat more fruit and you'll stay healthy.' These words weren't a hollow slogan..." It is the responsibility of the state, and especially the public health authorities, to spend no money for poison, but rather for fruit, tropical fruits, almonds and nuts, in order to finally respond to the huge demand and the much too small supply." Elfriede Steude 28 October 1958, BAB: DQ1/6017.
68. The VII. Parteitag (1967) gave a gendered corporeal identity to this abstract ideal type; this new person was, among others, "a carefully coiffed nonsmoker with a white shirt and tie." Winfried Thaa, Iris Häuser, et al., Gesellschaftliche Differenzierung, 51.
69. According to Kurt Starke, a leading East German sexologist, the Wall led to an "usconsciousness" (ein Wir-Bewusstsein): which meant that "the other is increasingly viewed not as a competitor, enemy or stranger, but as a companion in suffering and in health." Consequently, "love and sexuality represented a free space and an unencumbered relationship with a tightly enclosed/regulated society." Cited in Uta Kolano, Nackter Osten (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1995), 86, 89.
70. Eroticism and sex tend to take center stage in East German remembrances of the GDR. See Katrin Rohnstock, ed., Erotik macht die Hässlichen schön (Berlin, 1995)
71. and Wolfgang Engler, Die Ostdeutschen: kunde von einem verlorenen Land (Berlin, 1999).
72. Elisabeth Fenk to the Ministry of Health 29 November 1966, BAB: DQ1/5175.
73. Erika Nebel to the Ministry of Health 7 December 1961, BAB: DQ1/6017.
74. Young-sun Hong, "Modernity and the Historiography of the German Welfare State, 1870-1945," paper presented at the 2001 conference of the German Studies Association.